How can the poor, who often have limited or no access to the Internet, become content providers on the Web? What’s being done to help those who can’t afford computers get their concerns and messages across over the Internet? These issues and more were discussed last week at the Netroots Nation panel Building a National Broadband Plan: How Activists in California Are Bridging the Digital Divide. Featured speakers were Sasha Constanza-Chock, founder of VozMob (Voces Moviles, Mobile Voices); Madelou Gonzalez, a VozMob member and volunteer for the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California; Amalia Deloney, Grassroots Policy Director for the Center for Media Justice; and Ruth Williams, Community Investment Officer for ZeroDivide. LA Media Reform’s own Will Coley served as moderator. Watch the entire session below:

Nice! I hope we can get some of those (all!) speakers at our upcoming summit… Access to Broadband as topic for our panel?

As stated above, barriers to broadband include access and affordability…”One of the more hidden barriers is relevancy. For people to desire broadband generally, they must understand why it’s important to have it. This understanding is strongest when people become generators and producers of their own content. We found that content’s level of sophistication and the type of content is less important than the times people create. So the amount of time you spend creating, the amount of things that you do create, is more important to your understanding and desire for broadband. ”

Everyone who uses the Web for social networking, political action and entertainment should be concerned that the major telecommunications companies wish to get their grubby hands on the reins of the Internet so they can start gouging consumers more than they already do. Having a free and open Internet is essential for grassroots political activists who use the blogosphere to express alternative points of view shut out of the mainstream media. Last weekend’s Netroots Nation conference featured a panel on net neutrality, also known as Internet Freedom. The panel, called Protecting Rights in the Digital Realm, included Amalia Deloney, Grassroots Policy Director for the Center for Media Justice; Andy Bloch of the Poker Players Alliance; and James Rucker, co-founder of ColorofChange.org.